Meet Nancy

I was compensated by World Vision for my time in writing this post. All opinions are my own. This post is sponsored by World Vision. Thank you to World Vision for partnering with me. And thank you readers for supporting this cause that is so close to my heart. #GreaterTogether

Friends, I want you to meet nine year old Nancy. Nancy lives in Uganda and, as the youngest member of her family, carries the weight of being the savior of the family according to the beliefs of the land. Thankfully, Nancy has a team of people behind her to help her with this huge responsibility to care for her aging parents and siblings. Nancy and her brother, Moses, are both sponsored through the World Vision program, where they are able to receive an education, school supplies, additional monetary gifts from their sponsors, and hope for a better future.

Nancy’s father, Nelson, attends planning meetings through World Vision where he learns to care for Nancy and her siblings, plan a future for them, and how he can help to create a positive future for his family. He assists in building up the community with help from World Vision, who put in a borehole in his land (with his permission) to provide clean drinking water for the community. He was also able, through monetary gifts from Moses’ sponsor, to purchase an oxen, and then an ox plow and a bull. Now he can sell the harvest and keep some to feed his family. Through the parent education programs, Nancy’s father has also learned about obstacles Nancy faces in her land like young marriage and abuse. Because of these programs, he now promises to keep Nancy from marrying too young or into abuse or neglect and instead wants her to focus on her education. Nelson hopes to soon build a house for Nancy so she can rent it out.

Nancy is learning english and has hopes to become a doctor. She loves the children’s Bible forums where she has learned to preach and continues her spiritual development. World Vision build her school and provided her scholastic materials and even constructed desks for Nancy and other students. Nancy and her mother, Jacinta, say that they spread out their sponsors pictures to pray over them daily. Moses’ sponsors have even come to visit the family.

This is Team Nancy in action: A family praying together in a sturdy shelter, their children clear-eyed with a bright future, all supported by loving sponsors in the United States. “These are the right people to help Nancy in her future,” says Jacinta, when the prayer is over. There will be another prayer tomorrow and again the next day as grateful parents send thanks to God that their last born, Nancy, the savior of their family, will be well equipped to serve.

World Vision is a cause close to my heart as our family has our own sponsored child, Dennis, who lives in Bolivia. Dennis is just a year older than my two boys, who relate to him and want to help him. We assist Dennis and his community with our monthly monetary gift, but Dennis blesses our family with his spirit and friendship. My sons both pray for Dennis daily and we put together care packages every few months as we eagerly await the latest letter or drawing from our Bolvian friend. Dennis shares a birthday with my son, Liam, who passed away as an infant and who shares his Bolivian ethnicity. In a way, Dennis has helped me to heal and fill a space in my heart that somehow needed to nurture and love on him.

World Vision has had a huge impact on easing world poverty and through US sponsors like you, can help achieve it one step at a time. Poverty is complex and rarely solved by one intervention. Depending on each community’s needs, a sponsored child—and his or her entire community—benefit from things like clean water through new or renovated wells, school fees and supplies, better education due to restored schools and teacher training, improved nutrition due to agricultural training, as well as healthcare clinics and immunizations. It is the goal of World Vision sponsorship to help your sponsored child and his or her community break the cycle of poverty so they can step into the future with hope. Throughout their approximate 15 year involvement in communities, they manage, monitor, and evaluate progress toward the community’s goals. When these goals are met, World Vision can move on to other communities to serve other children in need of help.

World Vision child sponsorship is an incredible model that allows for a one-on-one relationship with a sponsor, while pooling the gifts of all sponsors who support children in the same community so that they are able to provide long-term resources for lasting change. Sponsorship is not a handout, but rather a helping hand. World Vision comes alongside children, families and communities to provide tools, training and hope so they can become self-sufficient. It’s child-focused and community-based. You’ll get to know, love and encourage a specific child while helping fund resources and improvements that benefit them and their community. It serves all children with Christ’s love. Motivated by faith in Jesus, World Vision serves all children regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or gender. They go where other organizations can’t. World Vision is time-tested and have been around for over 60 years, and have refined their approach to cultivate a full solution to poverty and injustice.

If you’re interested in sponsoring a child through World Vision, use the tool below to start your search for a child in need. I know other families who adopt a child with the same birthday as their own children or maybe a certain country speaks to your heart? There are real children in desperate need of your help all over the world.